The Art of Laziness

Honoring our boy on May Day (May 1). Love that historically May Day - among other things - was about ushering in spring and new life. While I've seen many posts talk about the connection to the distress signal 'mayday,' I think it's nice to keep in mind that meeting Mayday was also the start of Crosshair's journey to his new life.

Yeah, I think a lot of people tend to look down on Aboriginal art because they think it's a form of abstract art that is just lines and shapes but almost all of them tell a story. Sometimes it's a very obvious story, such as the emu dreaming where the waterhole flooded, and sometimes it's more symbolic.

the circle in the middle is a waterhole/dam or billabong. The squiggly lines coming out of it are small rivers. the dots represent the earth but because they are in neat lines, it almost feels as if they have been flattened by the flooded water, especially as the vector lines draw out from the waterhole in the middle. the emu tracks are heading toward the waterhole, and the three lines in the middle are marks left by their tail, implying that they are wading through the mud to get there.

It's a birdseye view of a moment just after the waterhole floods and afterwards the emus go looking for food.

It's Interesting, because the original artist D. J. Ross was from Yuendumu which is in central australia, so this would have been a rare time that there was enough rain to flood the waterhole.

Dreaming stories, kinship links, sacred rites, keeping track of biodiversity and songlines are some other topics covered by Aboriginal art.

In the same way monet painted the middle class and the local landscape in the late 1800's/early 1900's Aboriginal people also paint the average lifestyle of our people. It just looks different.

For example, this picture shows a LOT of activity. The men at the top left of the picture are doing a cultural burn near and around a sacred site, the women at the bottom left are digging for food. across the river, on the right the people are preparing food and in the center, two people (presumably elders) are preparing for a ceremony.

I wouldn't say these all happened at the same time, more that this was a common undertaking over a set of time.

it takes time to understand and not all symbols are the same in all areas, but once you do understand them it becomes easier to see the story being told.

Out at 11 to keep the water trough from slushing up. This time I took Pity on Rosalie and put her coat on. K bought it in the fall, and I don't think she has ever worn it before. She was not thrilled.

She said, "I - can just stay on the porch? Right?"

As a matter of fact, no, Rosalie, you cannot.

I can't even.

She did eventually get the hang of moving in it, but continued jumping into the air and shaking vigorously, trying to get rid of it.

Meanwhile, Hero and the gang are just hanging out by the haybale. Enduring stoically.

Unfortunately this means that come mid to late summer, the cockerels are ready to strike out on their own ie. Stop sleeping with those silly grownups (alternate version as reported by the adult chickens: parents kick those absolute idiot teenagers out of the coop perches due to a serious case of Excessive Hormones and Unruly Behaviour) (a pattern that does seem to match with their jungle fowl ancestors)

Then, when one goes out to lock up the coop at night, one is faced with the tree nearest the coop being filled - up to a height of about 30' - with chickens who are convinced this is the Best and Only place to sleep. (To be clear there is significantly more indoor perch space than actually needed, they could and do all comfortably fit inside)

Choices at this point are:

a) feed the raccoons (not ideal on many levels including but not limited to that's *my* future dinner dangit!)

b) shake the tree (at best resulting in confused and irritated chickens landing on one's head, also not ideal)

c) get out the leaf blower because I have yet to meet a chicken that enjoys its butt fluff being suddenly blown backwards

So C it is. Which thankfully after a few days does result in being able to run the chickens out of the tree just by turning it on for a few seconds. They aren't stupid birds. But those first few days I do have to stand around under the tree (or on the coop roof) causally leafblowing my chickens.